September 11, 2024

Cruel Summer: On the evening of June 27, about two and a half minutes after the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump began, I let out a bit of a groan. (I’m speaking strictly for myself, but I suspect I was far from the only one.) Biden had just begun answering the first question, and was already clearing his throat and mumbling a bit. His performance throughout the rest of the 90 minutes didn’t get much better. There were moments, here and there, of the folksy sparkle that his long tenure in government is well-known for, but that’s all they were: moments. The rest of the time, he either mumbled, meandered, or slack-jawingly moped the rest of the time. Trump, by contrast, looked cool, calm, and collected — despite his lack of actually answering any questions satisfactorily. He smirked, sneered, and ran roughshod over the President, goading him into debating golf handicaps or accidentally saying, “We finally beat Medicare.”

September: Last night, September 10, it didn’t take that long for things to go a different direction. Right at the beginning, as the candidates entered the stage, Trump’s new opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, strode directly up to him to shake his hand. There was the briefest of moments when it looked like he was going to avoid shaking her hand, but did so anyway, perfunctorily. Things were already not going his way.

You Need To Calm Down: And it would only get worse from there; last night was Trump’s turn to play the “old man yells at cloud” role, as he was baited, time and time again, by Harris. And he took the bait, every. single. time. This time, Harris was the one who looked very much in control (dare I say, “presidentially so”?”), steering him into rambling screeds filled with lies about his crowd sizes, how “every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted” Roe v. Wade to be struck down, that she “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison”, or that undocumented Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating people’s pets. It was really remarkable. Arguably, his worst moment was, after repeatedly refusing to state what sort of insurance plan would be better than Obamacare, when asked point-blank if he had a plan, his response was that of a fifth-grader who forgot to do his homework: “I have the concepts of a plan.” And when he wasn’t speaking, he was either squinting into the studio lights, grimacing, or shaking his head petulantly at his opponent’s assertions.

This Is Me Trying: Harris obviously put in the prep-work for the debate. There were some obvious lines peppered throughout her time; not that they were bad lines at all, just noticeable — like referring to “his Project 2025″ or calling his desired tariffs a “Trump sales tax”. Her best line of the night, IMHO, was right after he reaffirmed that he didn’t lose the 2020 election, and that 75 million people were calling for him to be in charge again. She responded,

“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So let’s be clear about that. And clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that.”

Hits Different: There was another moment, about 40 minutes into the debate, while Trump was giving a list of policies that Harris had given different opinions on over the years, where Harris — who’s mic was off, so we couldn’t hear her, but Trump could — verbally objected to one of the items. Trump interrupted himself to say, “Wait a minute, I’m talking now. [If] you don’t mind, please. Does that sound familiar?”

He was referring to a moment during the 2020 vice presidential debate when then-Vice President Mike Pence attempted to speak over Harris while she was answering a question, and she sternly told him off. Unfortunately, Trump didn’t realize that it sounds and feels quite a bit different when a man shushes a woman. And his refusal to call her by name even once throughout the evening didn’t help. I mean, who knew he was so into pronouns?

Karma: Arguably, that wasn’t the biggest news of the night for some folks. Within a few minutes of the end of the debate, none other than super-mega-colossal-star Taylor Swift announced via Twitter that she was endorsing Kamala Harris for President, cheekily signing off as a “Childless Cat Lady”. Part of her statement refers to the dangers of AI, certainly put in there due to Trump posting an AI-generated image of Swift supposedly endorsing him. She obviously did not take kindly to that. Her full statement is certainly worth reading, but I’ll quote the final paragraph:

“I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.”

Why do I call this part out? Because I think the biggest impact Swift will have is not necessarily moving Republicans to vote for Harris, but instead will be encouraging those who may not have voted at all to instead consider voting for Harris. You’ll note from the numbers above, that even with the huge turnout of 2020, we’re talking roughly158 million people voted out of a potential of somewhere around 258 million. The votes of 100 million people could have a massive impact on the path of our democracy, but the vast majority of them believe that nothing will ever change, so they just don’t bother voting. Now, you might say “Shake It Off”, but I know All Too Well — and this is hardly an Epiphany — that every American Girl (and boy) has a potential to make a Change, provided they fill out the Blank Space(s) on an election ballot.